# Bishop Barron's Sermon - Can the Church Collapse_ The Shocking Answer

An episode of [Daily Sermons With Bishop Robert Barron](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6783446284), 1 Sep 2026, 14 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74742487/bishop_barron_s_sermon_can_the_church_collapse_the_shocking_answer.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Peace be with you, friends, for this 21st Sunday of
[0:03] Speaker 1: Ordinary Time. The Church brings us once again with Jesus
[0:07] Speaker 1: and the disciples to Caesarea Philippi, and a famous question.
[0:12] Speaker 1: It's interesting to me, I've been preaching now for 40 years,
[0:15] Speaker 1: and how often this scene comes up liturgically. How often
[0:20] Speaker 1: the Church wants us to return to Caesarea Philippi and
[0:25] Speaker 1: to the question posed by Jesus. Now, the main characters
[0:29] Speaker 1: in this little scene would be Jesus and Peter. Whenever
[0:34] Speaker 1: the focus is on Peter, we're talking about ecclesiology. We're
[0:39] Speaker 1: talking about the study of the church. Peter is kind
[0:43] Speaker 1: of the symbol of the church. And so we're going
[0:46] Speaker 1: to learn something here very important about both Jesus and
[0:51] Speaker 1: the church. But we have to kind of unpack the
[0:54] Speaker 1: dynamics of this scene. Endlessly fascinating. I find like now
[1:00] Speaker 1: over 2,000 years, the church keeps returning to the scene
[1:02] Speaker 1: and drawing insight from it. So here's the first thing
[1:06] Speaker 1: to notice, everybody. Jesus turns to his disciples and says,
[1:11] Speaker 1: who do people say that the Son of Man is?
[1:15] Speaker 1: I want you to see how peculiar that question is.
[1:20] Speaker 1: Think of any other religious figure or founder over the centuries.
[1:26] Speaker 1: The Buddha would never say to his followers, who do
[1:28] Speaker 1: people say that I am? No, he'd say, I've discovered
[1:31] Speaker 1: I'm enlightened under the Bodhi tree. I came to enlightenment.
[1:35] Speaker 1: I awakened from a kind of spiritual slumber, and I
[1:39] Speaker 1: have discerned a spiritual path that will help others toward enlightenment. Oh,
[1:44] Speaker 1: but who are you? Well, okay, I'm the Buddha. This
[1:46] Speaker 1: means I'm the one that's enlightened, that woke up. But
[1:49] Speaker 1: the focus is not on him personally. It's on his teaching, right? Moses,
[1:53] Speaker 1: can you imagine him? Moses, you know, in front of
[1:56] Speaker 1: his people say, now, who do people say that I am?
[1:59] Speaker 1: What are you talking about? You're Moses, you're son of
[2:02] Speaker 1: the Hebrew parents, and you're raised in the Egyptian court,
[2:05] Speaker 1: and then you escaped, and now you've led your people
[2:07] Speaker 1: to freedom, and you're the giver of the law, and
[2:10] Speaker 1: you've been the leader of the people. Terrific. But the
[2:13] Speaker 1: focus isn't on you personally, on your nature. It's on
[2:17] Speaker 1: the Torah that came through you. It sits through your leadership, etc.
[2:21] Speaker 1: Same of Confucius, Muhammad, again, you never say, what's the
[2:27] Speaker 1: ontological makeup of Muhammad? Muslims don't care about that. They
[2:32] Speaker 1: care that he was given this revelation, and he's the
[2:35] Speaker 1: bearer of it and spokesman for it, but they wouldn't
[2:37] Speaker 1: look at his own being as of great significance. Then
[2:42] Speaker 1: there's Jesus. He doesn't say here, what are they saying
[2:46] Speaker 1: about my teaching? I gave the Sermon on the Mount.
[2:48] Speaker 1: What do they think? Good reaction? No. How are the
[2:52] Speaker 1: crowds taking it? Do they think I'm saying true things?
[2:55] Speaker 1: Those would be reasonable enough questions. I could say to
[2:59] Speaker 1: my audience, do you like these sermons or the book
[3:03] Speaker 1: I wrote? Did you appreciate that? But what if I
[3:07] Speaker 1: looked into this camera and I said to all of you,
[3:11] Speaker 1: who do you say that I am? Well, you'd think
[3:14] Speaker 1: I'd lost my mind, right? And you'd be right. Then
[3:18] Speaker 1: that's Jesus. Who do people say that the Son of
[3:22] Speaker 1: Man is? Notice something, too, that's interesting to me. In
[3:25] Speaker 1: the letters of Paul, so the earliest Christian literature we have,
[3:30] Speaker 1: the preaching and letters of Paul, there's hardly a mention
[3:34] Speaker 1: of Jesus' teaching. Occasional, little indirect references to it. But
[3:39] Speaker 1: there's an enormous interest in who he is. Look at
[3:44] Speaker 1: the early councils of the church. They're not talking about
[3:46] Speaker 1: Jesus' teaching or his parables or the Sermon on the
[3:49] Speaker 1: Mount but they're massively interested in who he is. All
[3:54] Speaker 1: the talk about, you know, God from God, light from light,
[3:57] Speaker 1: true God from true God, nature, person, hypostasis, all of
[4:00] Speaker 1: this technical language to describe who he is.
[4:06] Speaker 2: Because everybody, that's the heart of Christianity, and that's the
[4:10] Speaker 2: focus of the church up and down the ages. Yes,
[4:15] Speaker 2: Jesus' teaching, of course we reverence it, but the fundamental
[4:18] Speaker 2: question is.
[4:19] Speaker 1: Who is Is he? The church provides the answer to
[4:26] Speaker 1: that question up and down the ages. You want to
[4:28] Speaker 1: know the basic task of the church? That's it. And
[4:33] Speaker 1: it comes from this peculiar question. Now, here's the next
[4:36] Speaker 1: thing we discern. Listen. Well, they replied, some say John
[4:40] Speaker 1: the Baptist, others Elijah, still other Jeremiah or one of
[4:43] Speaker 1: the prophets. Well, now, what are they doing? They're taking
[4:46] Speaker 1: a public opinion poll. And these disciples of Jesus would
[4:49] Speaker 1: have been hearing from the crowds, and I'm sure this
[4:52] Speaker 1: is right. They would have picked up these various theories.
[4:56] Speaker 1: He's the reincarnation of these great prophets. He's like John
[4:59] Speaker 1: the Baptist come back to life. All right. If today,
[5:04] Speaker 1: in a more sophisticated way, we took a public opinion poll, say,
[5:07] Speaker 1: who is Jesus? What do you say Jesus is?
[5:10] Speaker 2: We get.
[5:11] Speaker 1: A lot of similar answers, a variety of other answers. Oh,
[5:14] Speaker 1: he's a religious founder. Oh, he's a moral teacher. Oh,
[5:17] Speaker 1: he's a mystic. Oh, he's a guru. Oh, he was
[5:19] Speaker 1: a sage. Oh, he was this poor guy killed by
[5:22] Speaker 1: the Romans. Public opinion would give you a range of impressions, right?
[5:29] Speaker 1: So then Jesus turns to the 12. Okay, yeah, that's
[5:33] Speaker 1: what the people are saying. Who do you say I am?
[5:37] Speaker 1: It's interesting now, isn't it, that no one speaks— He's
[5:41] Speaker 1: just turned to his inner circle, to the leaders of
[5:44] Speaker 1: his group, the elite. You might say the aristocrats following him.
[5:50] Speaker 1: They don't have an answer. Church is not a democracy
[5:54] Speaker 1: based upon public opinion, nor is it really an aristocracy
[5:58] Speaker 1: based upon the consensus of the elite. Who speaks up? Peter.
[6:06] Speaker 1: Peter speaks up. You are the Christ, the Son of
[6:10] Speaker 1: the living God. Peter knows who Jesus is, and that's
[6:19] Speaker 1: the most important thing to know. Peter speaks here now
[6:24] Speaker 1: with the authority of the church in knowing who Jesus is.
[6:31] Speaker 1: What's the job of the church, led by Peter and
[6:34] Speaker 1: his successors up and down the ages, to keep proclaiming
[6:39] Speaker 1: this truth? We know who he is. We know who
[6:43] Speaker 1: he is. We know who he is. Everything else follows
[6:48] Speaker 1: from that. I'm not saying that's the exclusive claim of
[6:50] Speaker 1: the church, but it's the central claim of the church.
[6:53] Speaker 1: It comes not from opinion, not even from the consensus
[6:56] Speaker 1: of the aristocracy. It comes mystically and by a special
[7:00] Speaker 1: charism to Peter and his successors. So listen to Jesus.
[7:08] Speaker 1: Jesus said, Blessed are you, Simon, son of Jonah, for
[7:12] Speaker 1: flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but
[7:16] Speaker 1: my heavenly Father. And so I say to you, Simon Bar-Jonah,
[7:23] Speaker 1: you are Peter. Kepha, he would have said in the Aramaic.
[7:28] Speaker 1: Kepha rendered Petros in Greek, Petrus in Latin, hence Peter
[7:35] Speaker 1: in English. Rock, rocky, right? And upon this rock, I
[7:41] Speaker 1: will build my church. What's the church built upon? Not
[7:46] Speaker 1: common consensus, not aristocratic consensus. It's based upon this mystical claim.
[7:52] Speaker 1: And it's Peter and his successors who are given the
[7:56] Speaker 1: prerogative of announcing this up and down the ages. That's
[8:01] Speaker 1: the rock. Now, you know, I think I told this
[8:04] Speaker 1: story before. It was when Pope Benedict XVI was elected
[8:09] Speaker 1: and Cardinal George was was there, my great mentor. And
[8:15] Speaker 1: he appears on the loge of St. Peter's after the election.
[8:18] Speaker 1: Benedict is there waving to the crowds. And he has
[8:21] Speaker 1: this weirdly pensive expression. And they asked him later what
[8:25] Speaker 1: it was. He said, well, I was thinking about Rome
[8:28] Speaker 1: and all the Roman emperors and where they lived over
[8:31] Speaker 1: on the Palatine Hill. And I was wondering, where are they?
[8:36] Speaker 1: Where are the Roman emperors? emperors, where's the successor of
[8:40] Speaker 1: Julius Caesar or Augustus Caesar? And he said, they're nowhere.
[8:44] Speaker 1: That whole thing has turned to dust. But the successor
[8:48] Speaker 1: of Peter, mysteriously, he's right there, waving at the crowd.
[8:55] Speaker 1: What's Jesus saying? On this rock, I'll build my church,
[8:58] Speaker 1: and the gates of another world will not prevail against it. Look, everybody,
[9:05] Speaker 1: every kingdom we can name from the ancient world, you know,
[9:11] Speaker 1: Greece and Rome and Babylon and Egypt come up through
[9:14] Speaker 1: the Middle Ages, come into modern times, including, you know,
[9:18] Speaker 1: Hitler's thousand-year Reich and Stalin's communism. And where are they?
[9:24] Speaker 1: Napoleon's empire. Where are they? Where are they? They've all
[9:29] Speaker 1: turned to dust. But weirdly enough, We're still here. And
[9:36] Speaker 1: I submit to you, everybody, that is a weird proposition
[9:41] Speaker 1: predicted here 2,000 years ago in Caesarea Philippi. You are Peter,
[9:47] Speaker 1: and upon this rock of your confession of who I am,
[9:51] Speaker 1: I will build the church that will prevail against even
[9:57] Speaker 1: the power of hell. See, I It's not like I'm
[10:01] Speaker 1: making something up. This is empirically verifiable. Now, since Benedict,
[10:07] Speaker 1: we've had two further popes. Now, Leo XIV, right, gloriously reigning,
[10:12] Speaker 1: the successor of Peter, who knows who Jesus is. And
[10:16] Speaker 1: upon that rock, The church res. Now, here's just the
[10:21] Speaker 1: last thing. I got this from Fulton Sheen. I've been
[10:24] Speaker 1: reading a lot of him recently because we're about to
[10:27] Speaker 1: beatify him as I record these words. He talks about
[10:31] Speaker 1: the dual nature of this figure. Now, why? Well, he's
[10:35] Speaker 1: called Simon and Peter. Even as Jesus addresses him, blessed
[10:42] Speaker 1: are you, Simon, son of Jonah. but I'm going to
[10:45] Speaker 1: give you a new name. Now, Kepha, Rocky, Petrus, Peter.
[10:50] Speaker 1: But throughout the New Testament, he's referred to by both names,
[10:54] Speaker 1: and sometimes both together, Simon Peter. Well, Fulton Sheen's observation was,
[10:59] Speaker 1: it's a beautiful signal of, if you want the dual
[11:02] Speaker 1: nature of the church, the Simon side of this man. Unsure, unreliable, vacillating, Impetuous?
[11:19] Speaker 1: At the moment of truth, someone who denies he even
[11:22] Speaker 1: knows Jesus, who, along with the other disciples, runs from him?
[11:28] Speaker 1: Think about that, everybody. Here's Jesus, right? The center of
[11:31] Speaker 1: their lives, their Lord and Messiah. But when the moment
[11:34] Speaker 1: of truth came, they all fled. Simon, Simon. What's that
[11:40] Speaker 1: stand for? It stands for the fallen, flawed, imperfect, corrupt,
[11:46] Speaker 1: scandal-ridden side of the church. Try denying it. I mean,
[11:53] Speaker 1: open up any page of church history. What are you
[11:55] Speaker 1: going to find? Corruption in the church. Yes, even in
[11:58] Speaker 1: the top leadership. We had a great professor when I
[12:00] Speaker 1: was a kid at Mundelein Seminary, Father Charlie Meyer. And
[12:04] Speaker 1: Charlie had taught church history for the longest time. And
[12:07] Speaker 1: He kind of took a certain delight in sharing the
[12:10] Speaker 1: stories of the corrupt popes in the Middle Ages and
[12:13] Speaker 1: so on. Well, in a way, that was good because
[12:15] Speaker 1: it immunized me so that when, in my own lifetime,
[12:21] Speaker 1: great scandal broke out in the church, I was like, well, yeah,
[12:25] Speaker 1: there's a Simon dimension to the church. But Fulton Sheen
[12:30] Speaker 1: insists there's also this Petrine dimension, Peter, Petrus. Kepha, the rock.
[12:41] Speaker 1: In the measure that the Church, led by the successor
[12:44] Speaker 1: of Peter, knows who Jesus is and embodies that knowledge
[12:48] Speaker 1: in its sacramental life and the witness of its saints,
[12:51] Speaker 1: it remains the rock, permanent, absolute, resistant to any attempt
[13:00] Speaker 1: to undermine it. The Church has endured down to the ages.
[13:05] Speaker 1: against which the gates of hell will not prevail. Yep,
[13:08] Speaker 1: that church. Both Simon, yes, in his fallen nature, and Peter.
[13:17] Speaker 1: So go back, everybody, get out your Bibles, go back
[13:20] Speaker 1: to the scene, Matthew chapter 16. Visit with these disciples,
[13:25] Speaker 1: if you want, Caesarea Philippi. See the Lord Jesus right there,
[13:30] Speaker 1: turning toward you and saying, who do you say that
[13:34] Speaker 1: I am? Everything depends upon the way you answer that question.
[13:39] Speaker 1: And thank God we have the guarantee of Peter and
[13:42] Speaker 1: his successors who know who Jesus is. And God bless you.

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